The Film Society of Lincoln Center, the nonprofit organization that presents the annual New York Film Fest, has chosen star and director Robert Redford to receive its 42nd annual Chaplin Award.
The laurel, which honors the film industry’s most notable talents, will lionize Redford for a career that has included iconic acting work (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “All the President’s Men,” “The Sting,” “The Natural”); a string of films as a director (“Ordinary People,” “A River Runs Through It,” “The Company You Keep”); Broadway credits (“Barefoot in the Park”); and staunch support of independent cinema as the founder of the Sundance Institute and its influential film festival.
Last year’s “All is Lost,” the J.C. Chandor film, in which Redford starred, had a slot in the 2013 New York Film Festival.
He just wrapped “A Walk in the Woods,” based on the Bill Bryson memoir, and is now at work on “Truth,” in which he stars as Dan Rather opposite Cate Blanchett.
Redford joins a venerable list of Chaplin honorees that includes Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Catherine Deneuve and Barbra Streisand, among others. Last year Rob Reiner received the award.
Redford will take home the award April 27. FSLC finishes up the 2014 edition of NYFF tonight with the closing film “Birdman.”
